Conforming to this genre are shuttles that carry the entire filling thread supply in order to lay the latter multiple times, alternating between the warp thread. Such a shuttle may, e.g., be found in EP 1 749 913 B1.
In known weaving machines, such shuttles are driven by means of drive elements arranged laterally next to the shed; such drives are, at a minimum, able to accelerate and decelerate the shuttle. Often, the shuttle is freewheeling between the machine sides, during which time the shuttle is neither guided nor picked up by any machine member of the weaving machine. The filling thread is unreeled by means of the shuttle's movement, with sometimes elaborate measures to compensate for free lengths of filling thread. In such shuttles, the filling thread is wound onto special filling bobbins.
It is not only during insertion of the filling thread for manufacturing wide weaves that controlling the filling thread poses a problem; due to rising quality requirements this is also the case in case of narrow weaves. Often in known processes, the filling thread is under too much strain or woven sloppily because the filling thread has been unreeled in an uncontrolled manner, or too much deceleration has been applied.